1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information handling systems and more particularly to the use of port knocking in information handling systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One issue relating to information handling systems is how multiple information handling systems can efficiently and safely communicate. When communicating, information handling systems can be configured to respond to requests on open networking ports. However, having the open port allows for malicious entities to detect the existence of the system through exhaustive port scanning, and subsequently launch an exhaustive authentication attack on the open port. Because of this possible security threat, it is desirable for systems to be configured to have all networking ports closed with the help of firewall technologies. Closing the network ports can prevent other systems from creating network connections to that system, as any attempt to connect will fail as no ports are set to respond. While this blocks malicious connection attempts, such a method also prevents valid connection attempts from trusted systems from gaining access via the port.
One known method of addressing this challenge is port knocking. Port provides a method of authentication that works while all networking ports are closed at the time of the remote login attempt. The authentication is provided by having the remote system attempt to connect, or knock, on the closed ports of the target system in a particular pre-determined sequence. The target system can monitor these port knocks via standard logs generated by the firewall technology, and if the pre-determined sequence is recognized, the target system allows a connection by the remote system. The probability of an attacker generating the correct knock sequence is very low assuming the sequence length is sufficient.
While port knocking represents a valuable technology, currently its use is relatively limited. One reason for the relatively limited use of port knocking is a lack of a simple user interface. With known port knocking techniques, users need a script on the remote system that performs the knocks and monitoring software on the target system interpreting the firewall logs to recognize the incoming knock sequence and perform the appropriate action.
It would be desirable to provide a user friendly interface for using port knocking technology.